Should these volumes meet your approbation, so distinguishing an honor will afford ample compensation for the labor which has attended the construction of them. With the greatest respect and esteem, I have the honor to subscribe myself, Gentlemen, Your faithful servant, Worcester, Massachusetts, ISAIAH THOMAS. May 7, 1810. Discovery and progress of the art in Europe, Introduction of Printing in England, Account of the first English Printers, List of the first Printers in Europe, Asia, Africa and 85 See INDEX at the end of Vol. II. In page 68, read-between the years 1428 and 1431. PREFACE. THERE is implanted in man by the allwise Creator, a principle which stimulates him to invention, and produces a desire to communicate his discoveries to his contemporaries and to posterity. With this natural disposition to invent, and then to reveal the products of his ingenuity, is connected an insatiable curiosity to become acquainted with the origin and history of every discovery made by his fellow men. In no condition of man are the first principles of the arts and sciences unknown; which circumstance demonstrates that the efforts of invention arise from natural propensities, perpetually stimulated by his desire to render his works more perfect and useful. Rousseau says, "Man is employed, from the first age of his being, in invention and contrivance." As respects the communication of discoveries, it has been the custom of all civilized nations to hand them down from age to age by the pen of the scribe, and by the types of the printer; and, even among savages, it is the office of particular persons to chronicle, in their memories, the most interesting occurrences and extraordinary events, in order that they may be conveyed to future generations. But notwithstanding all that has been done, to transmit to us the history of the origin and progress of the arts, we are still very deficient in this branch of knowledge. The Greeks pretended to know the source from whence every thing was derived; and it was, probably, to conceal their ignorance of the rise of the arts, &c. that they assigned the invention of them to fabulous personages of fabulous ages.-To Prometheus they ascribed the discovery of fire; to Ceres, or the Egyptian Isis, the method of sowing wheat and barley; to Bacchus the introduction of wine; to Cadmus the art of carving, or statuary, &c. On the other hand it has been pretended that there never was a first physician, statuary, architect, or astronomer; but, that each art and science has been the result of the combined knowledge and application of a number of individuals who, in most instances, succeeded each other. And, it is said, that the progress of every art was a mystery to those who first practised its rudiments. As an illustration of this position, it is maintained, that he who invented an alphabet never thought of a library so large as that of Alexandria. As the discovery of all those arts, which have a just claim to antiquity, is involved in obscurity, we cannot wonder if some dark clouds should render a view of the origin of Printing indistinct. The following pages will shew, that the precise date of the invention of it in China cannot be ascertained; and, that the first principles of it were known in Europe, and in other parts of the world, from very remote ages; and, long before the reputed discovery of the art at Haerlem by LAURENTIUS.* * In a work called the Cabinet, printed at Edinburgh, there is an account that several plates have been found in the ruins of Herculaneum, a city of the kingdom of Naples, supposed to have been overwhelmed by the great eruption of Mount Vesuvius, A. D. 79, on which plates were engraven the names of eminent men. By means of these plates they were enabled to affix their signatures to any paper, or parchment, with greater expedition than by writing them. This was printing to all intents and purposes, but not arranged into that useful form which it has now acquired. SOLOMON has said, that "there is no new thing under the sun;" and DUTENS, in his Recherches sur les Decouvertes attribues aux Modernes, makes some observations, which are humiliating to the pride of modern inventors. He affirms, "there is scarcely one of |